Page 19 of The Quiet Alpha and His Fox

The driver eyed Joe warily. "Who's that?"

It was clear that they expected me to be out here alone. With my most pissed-off alpha glare, I looked into the driver's beady eyes. "You need to get off my property right now."

Instead of listening to me, the driver opened his door and stepped out of the van with the other men following. "We're with you, Waylan. We're with the West Coast Coyotes. Este sent us to pick up a hundred bricks."

"Bullshit. I'm not going to tell you to leave again."

The men were all on the small side, so I wasn't worried about myself, but it wasn’t just about me anymore. Now I had an omega to worry about because I didn't want him to get hurt. A low growl started to form in the back of my throat.

Unfazed, the men started toward the barn.

I shifted and went after the driver, figuring he was the leader. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the others pull a gun and point it at me. I pivoted, worried I would be too late to stop him, but then a lean, gray fox came sailing through the air and sank his fangs into the gunman's arm.

The man screamed and dropped the gun, which clattered with a wooden sound.

Both annoyed and relieved, I realized the gun was fake, and Joe was going to turn the guy's arms into shredded jerky. I pivoted back to the driver and saw a band of red foxes where the men had just been.

I gave them one vicious alpha growl, and they all began to whimper and cower. Joe's guy shifted too, but Joe's larger gray body stood over him.

The situation would have been laughable if it weren't so pathetic. These guys must have thought I was an easy mark. Some small-time gang trying to make a big score, thinking they could impersonate the West Coast Coyotes and steal our product.

Joe circled around the back of them, keeping them where they were.

I shifted back and towered over the foxes. They were likely too afraid to shift back, and several rolled onto their backs and peed. "If any of you try to run, I will hunt you down and find you." I walked to the doors of the empty root cellar and pulled them open. "Joe, get them in here."

Joe herded the foxes down into the cellar, then we locked the doors.

My omega shifted back into his skin and turned to me, his eyes wide. "I thought you said foxes didn't organize."

"Gray foxes don’t.” I chuckled and nodded toward the piss puddles. “And I wouldn't exactly call that organized."

He wrapped his arms around me. "You were amazing! Weren't you afraid?"

Now that was funny. "Of them? No. But we'll have to call Este about this, and you'll get to meet the real West Coast Coyotes. Then you'll understand why I'm not afraid of a few punks like this."

Joe nodded and swallowed hard. “Okay.”

I didn't want him to know that I was more nervous about him and Este meeting than anything else. I hadn't explicitly talked to Este about my finding a mate. Honestly, I think we both just assumed it would never happen, that The Quiet would keep everyone away. And if Este ever did think about me finding a mate, he probably assumed it would be a coyote. I wasn’t sure how Este would react or if he would have a problem with Joe staying.

I shook my head to clear those thoughts away. "Come on. Let's go figure out how long we're gonna have to keep those guys down there and what we have to feed them."

Pitiful yips came from the root cellar as we walked to the house.

Joe looked at me. "Is that what I sound like?"

I laughed and took his hand. "No way. And you were pretty amazing back there, knocking the gun out of his hand."

He scoffed, though I could see the hint of pride in his eyes. "The wooden gun."

"Yeah, I didn't know if you even noticed that." I laughed again. I smiled, but inside, I felt unnerved. If those guys knew what we were doing back there, who else knew and how?

Chapter 12

Joe

Esteban told Waylan to keep the foxes captive for now but didn't give further instructions beyond that. It was weird watching Waylan talk to his boss on the phone. Waylan struck me as such a loner, someone who wouldn't have a superior, so thinking of him belonging to a whole pack was strange, especially a pack I didn't belong to.

I spent so much time enjoying the ways Waylan and I were alike that I rarely thought about this one big difference between us—he was a coyote and I was a fox. It never seemed to matter before, but now, members of his pack were coming out here. What would they think of me?

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